Elio Bucky is an opera stage director with an interdisciplinary background as a singer, composer, and projection designer. Their work celebrates plurality, truth, and innovation in the creative process.

This summer, Elio joins Wolf Trap Opera as a Directing Fellow. While in residence, they will direct Weill & Brecht’s Seven Deadly Sins, a workshop of Kamala Sankaram’s The House of Yes, and serve as the assistant director of Puccini’s La bohème.

In the 2023-2024 season, Elio directed a new production of La bohème; collaborated with pianist Tamar Sanikidze on Song Re-Imagined, a staged multimedia art song recital; and assisted on a new production of Tan Dun’s Tea: A Mirror of Soul at the Butler Opera Center in Austin, TX. Additionally, they were the projection designer for Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi at Binghamton University.

A champion of new works and prismatic interpretations of the inherited repertoire, Elio produced and directed the Chicago premiere of Melissa Dunphy’s The Gonzales Cantata in a double bill with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. They have served as the assistant director of the Chicago premiere of David T. Little’s Dog Days (Northwestern University), the world premiere of Michael Ching’s Alice & Anna (Savannah VOICE Festival), and new productions of Das Rheingold, Carmen, and Cendrillon at Miami Music Festival.

In the 2022-2023 season, they directed undergraduate opera scenes and served as the assistant director for Proving Up and Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Butler Opera Center. They were the projection designer for Binghamton University’s production of L’incoronazione di Poppea. In the summer, Elio joined the Music Academy of the West as the Lehrer Vocal Institute Directing Fellow. There, they directed Jake Heggie’s Here and Gone; the cover performance of La bohème; served as the assistant director on the summer’s mainstage productions of La bohème and Cabaret: 1979; staged ensembles and designed projections for Music Academy’s Una noche en Miraflores, an evening of Spanish-language music curated by Ana María Martínez and Cesar Cañon; and worked with voice fellows in 1:1 dramatic coachings. They were named a Finalist in the Music Academy Fast Pitch Competition for their proposal to leverage Mixed Reality (AR/VR) technology to develop creative solutions for accessibility in the opera house.

Elio’s affinity for vocal music began as a member of the San Francisco Boys Chorus, with whom they sang onstage as a children’s chorister at the San Francisco Opera, on international tours, and at the first Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama.

Elio has been seen on stage in past seasons as Marcello (La bohème), Dr. Falke (Die Fledermaus), Jonathan (If I Were You), El Gallo (The Fantasticks), Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore), Starveling (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Somarone (Béatrice et Bénédict). While at Northwestern, they sang with the Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble under the direction of Donald Nally.

As a composer, their choral works have been performed by acclaimed vocal ensembles Chanticleer and Madison Choral Project. In 2015, Elio was the youngest winner of the Chanticleer Student Composer Competition for his composition Shalom!, which received its world premiere by Chanticleer and over 200 high schoolers from around the country at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, CA. Recent projects include three yeats songs, a song cycle written for and commissioned by San Francisco-based singer Elliot Franks, and we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself, a socially-distanced choral work for Northwestern University Choirs’s Cor-tet Songbook.

Elio holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in voice and opera performance from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, they simultaneously completed a Bachelor of Music in Voice and Opera Performance, a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies, the Integrated Marketing Communications Certificate, and graduated magna cum laude with departmental honors in both fields. They spent three summers studying and performing at the Chautauqua Institution.